Obama's speech

Of course I just had to sit and watch what our President had to tell us what he is planning. Most of it I applauded but there were 2 major points that I highly disagreed with. They were the plans to build more nuclear power plants and to start more off shore oil drilling. Where is that man's mind at?

Has he forgotten Chenobyl? Oh wait, that was back when he was just a child in 1986. What does he plan on doing with the nuclear waste that those things produce? Bury it like they did in the past? If they do that we will be seeing lawyers commercials on TV like we do now for Mesothelioma cancer, except this time for radiation related illnesses.

Then Obama mentioned the offshore oil drilling and I about went through the TV screen to strangle him. I thought he was all about alternative energy? Then why take steps backwards to oil? Is he in someones' back pocket? What about the pollution and global warming issues?

I think that those two issues brought up more controversy than he needs and he has to answer to that.

Taking care of your blog's comments

When you write a blog either for personal reasons or for the hopes you will earn some money from it, you will have to deal with people that leave comments. When writing your post you have the option of allowing comments on the post or not. Some people do not allow comments at all while other blogs know the advantage of having interaction of their readers. Unfortunately along with loyal readers leaving comments a blog owner will have to deal with the spam commentators.

A spam commentator will usually leave a very brief "loved your post" or "subscribed to your feed" with an obvious link to some website or blog about acne products reviews or teeth whitening products. Their only purpose is to leave an inbound link to their crummy website. The link may show up as a link when you hover over the commentator's name after you have published their comment and not as a link in the comment itself. What you have to keep in mind is that by having that outbound link on your website or blog is that you approve of that website in the eyes of Google. You have provided link love to that website. If you have too many of those types of outbound links then Google down grades your blog for not linking to blogs or websites that are similar to yours. That is where paid bloggers can get into trouble. Most of them think that they lose PageRank due to Google sending someone to look at their blog when in reality it is the fact that they have too many outbound links to websites that are not like theirs and very few inbound links from blogs that are like them.

Spammers have no clue why their websites do not do well and it is due to them just leaving comments on blogs that have nothing to do with their blog or website. They have not bothered to find out what SEO is all about.

As a blog owner you can put those spammers out of business and don't allow those spammy comments. You can improve your blog greatly by only allowing comments that add to the value of the original blog post or that entertain your readers. Don't be fooled by those comments that cater to your ego so they can get that precious inbound link from your blog. Guard your comments and treat your blog like gold and it will become precious to you over time.

The over use of the word "natural"

How many times have you seen the word "natural" just today to describe a product or method? I bet at least once if not more. When marketers jump on a word they over use it to the point of it becoming meaningless or an oxymoron.

Take for example when the word natural is used in conjunction with training like "natural horse training" or riding a bike "naturally." There is nothing natural about bike riding, it was a human invention and not a "natural" item. Neither is horse training a "natural" activity. It is natural for a horse to be a horse and not trained for anything. Both of those examples are how the word natural has been used and gotten out of hand. Another example is "natural diet pills", again there is nothing natural about pills. A natural diet would consist of regular foods and not pills at all.

As a consumer we must be constantly on the alert for misuse of words in advertising. The word natural should not throw you when you are shopping. The next time you see the word "natural" used in advertising, take a good look at the product and note the name of the company - what are they really trying to sell you?

Save money, eat less

Are you one of the many millions of people that spend $50 for the alli diet pill? If you are, I have a news flash for you, save that $50 and spend less on food. It really is a no brainer on how to save money and one of them is on food. Cut out all of those trips to the fast food places and save a bundle on money. The average price for a meal at the burger places range from $5 to $8 dollars now. If you live in a state that charges extra taxes on top of it then you are looking at a 6% expense on top of that price.

Resorting to selling anything to pay the bills

Much like the Great Depression, I have seen people try and sell almost anything to pay the bills. During the Great Depression it was common for people to resort to selling apples on the corner. This time around it seems to be selling diet supplements. Everything from vitamins for your dog to herbs to make the pain in your joints go away. The problem I see with that is that the people selling the stuff have not thoroughly investigated the ingredients or their effects on people or animals with medical problems or taking other medications. I know that these people need to make a living some how but maybe they should rethink what they are selling. After all they are not doctors or vets just untrained lay-people just trying to make a living.

Signs of the economy coming back to life

I was talking to a few friends of mine about the economy and both of them have a pulse on things that point to a brighter future. One of them has a small horse tack shop. When the economy started to go down hill, her business suffered. She had to resort to making money with an online blog, about horses of course. She still kept her shop going but moved it to the internet and shut up the brick and mortar store. She made the remark to me that her online sales have started to pick up. My other friend works in the electronic chip industry. The company she works for is reporting a huge jump in sales.

I have also had an increase of writing assignments, so many that I have had to turn some away. I had one just yesterday that wanted me to write a 600 word article about websites that had tretinoin reviews on them. Heck I don't even know what tretinoin is! They wanted to pay me $4.00 for that one so I passed. I like the ones that offer me $25.00 for a 400 word article about anything I want to write about. The only stipulation is that it is about a unique subject matter that is not readily available online. Most of the time those articles are very easy for me. I can churn those ones out in about 30 minutes or less.

Let's hope that the signs of the economy improving are not a false start.

Professional blogging has its ups and downs

Being a professional blogger I get some strange requests at times from companies that want me to write a blog post for them. Just the other day I got a request for a website review for me to do and put on my dog blog. They offered $40 for the review and written post. I thought wonderful until I found out the website they wanted me to write about was for auto parts. I had to email them back and decline the offer. Yes I like the money but I will not go off subject matter for my blogs. I get some strange offers for this blog, one to do a review about the side effects of hydroxycut of all things. When will these people even bother to check the blog before they make such unreal requests. The money is still very much there for a professional blogger to make a living but you need to have several established blogs to make a go of it. You will also turn down a lot of questionable websites and products even if the money is good. I will not write about anything that I don't investigate first and believe it to be a good thing.

Hidden discrimination

Discrimination is a nasty word when you are looking for work. With the vast amount of potential employees a company can choose from you know they will weed out people that just "don't fit in" well with their corporation.

I have learned that if a job is listed for more than a month, it is not a case of the company not finding someone who is qualified but they are being extremely picky about what the person looks like, their gender or race. Unfortunately no matter how much regulation about discrimination there is, it will continue in some industries. For example a store will not likely hire someone who weighs 300 pounds if they will be selling equestrian apparel or other sports related equipment because the customer who comes in to buy the clothing will want to have a salesperson who is experienced in that sport and an overweight person is not likely to be actively involved in sports. So now you have weight discrimination even if the potential employee has lots of retail experience. That type of discrimination is hard to prove so it is best just to keep looking.

In California some industries do practice a good looks type of discrimination. It is not just based on age but looking pretty or handsome. This type of discrimination tends to hit women harder than men but it does hit the men too. Other states don't seem to have that type of discrimination going on but you might know of others.

Being a women has its own set of discrimination going on. I have been asked at several interviews in the past if I was planning on starting a family or how many children I had, those questions would not be asked if I was a man. What they were really asking is was I planning on getting pregnant soon. My personal life has nothing to do with my work life and they had no business asking me about it, but because I was a women, they asked.

I wish we could truly end all those hidden incidences of discrimination once an for all.

Creative ways of seeking employment

If you have tried almost everything to find work, then it is time to get creative. I you are a fan of the TV show "Two and a Half Men" then you are familiar with the real estate selling mother of the cast. She looks through the obituary column to find future business. She is being creative in her job search and so should you.

While the obituary column will not yield you much of anything for job searches, you could read the business page or the economic news section. What you are looking for is businesses that are building new buildings, expanding production or relocating close to you. Find their websites and dig around for their employment openings. If they have a contact email then send them a cover letter to introduce yourself and why you would be an asset to their company along with your resume'. They don't have to have any job openings but they might in a few weeks and they have your resume to look at first.

Next just do some drive-bys of locations you would be interested in working at. Jot down the names and locations of the companies and then find their website and contact info.

Best of luck in your search and don't forget to get creative.

Do you really need that?

How often have you asked yourself, "do I really need that?" I bet more often in the past 6 months than you did in the last several years. Getting ahead of the monthly bills will seem like you are on a treadmill, going nowhere real fast unless you learn to cut out everything that you really don't need.

I use to be one of those shoppers that if I had an afternoon all to myself I would go out shopping and treat myself to something. That something would often spend more time in my closet than out of it so it was a waste of money for a moment of self gratification.

Nowadays if I have an afternoon to myself I will spend time with my dog or dig out an unfinished project that I never seemed to have the time to finish - now I have the time. No longer does having extra time mean spending money, now it means enjoying my time alone doing something that does not include buying.

The New Year brings more unemployment woes

The latest victims of the layoff craze are 1,800 UPS workers. Data from the unemployment statics show that more people lost their jobs in December 2009 than expected. It does not look like it is time to celebrate just yet for an up swing in the economy. I guess we had better put that tuxedo shirt away and forget the parties for now. I am still waiting to hear some good news about the economy, how about you? Have you heard anything positive yet?

A paid blogging community changes its format

There are many ways to get paid for blogging. The most obvious way is to get a free blog on blogger, myspace or one of the many thousands of other places and start a blog and in time put advertisiments on the blog and pray that you will get some money from your efforts. Another way is to buy your own domain and hosting then contract with several of the paid blogging companies there are. Currently the work load is light from those companies and the pay rate is about $5 a post. Yet. another way is to join a community blogging site.

Community blogging is different since you are either paid to write a post or you generate income at a percentage of what the parent company gets. Years ago I started out on BlogFeast, a now defunct blogging community. They paid you via Google adsense money. What they did was ask for your Google ads account number and told you that every 4 out of 5 clicks on one of the ads appearing on your blog at their site would earn you that money. They claimed a payout rate of 90% to you and they got 10%. That was fine until a few bloggers found out that it was more like 20% / 80%, with you getting the 20%. Bloggers then left and the company folded.

Now another company is trying the same thing, this time it is Today.com (I have an ad for them in the side bar just down a ways). Originally they paid their bloggers $2 a post, then it went to $2 per 1000 views. Starting today they are now 50% Google ad share revenue. I wonder what prompted the change? I have noticed that bloggers have been leaving the community in droves and they have shut down their forum for "maintenance."

I have a blog over at Today.com and I post in it about once every 2 weeks. Currently I get 400 visitors a day and the pay was not as good as I had hoped. I will be monitoring the change and see if they are honest about the Google adsense rev share program or not. The only advantage right now is that I have the visitor count to the blog that should make at least .50 cents a day, if not more. That is not bad for just letting the blog sit and earn money. I do have to keep it "active" by posting to the blog at least once in 30 days otherwise they close the account.

I will keep you posted on how they are paying and if it is worth the time and effort to start a blog there now that they have changed their format.

One of the worst paying ad networks

After a 3 month experiment with an ad network I can now say that AdBrite is one of the worst paying networks that a publisher can use to get money from displaying ads on their blogs. I had chosen one of my well trafficked blogs for the experiment. Normally I would get about $4-5 a week in Google ad clicks from the blog and that was when traffic to the blog was only 100-200 visitors a day. I did not know at the time I started the experiment that the blog would jump to well over 4K visitors a day and a few days hit the 14K mark and more. Dumb me, I should have reverted back to the Google ads but no I continued with the AdBrite ads, thinking that the pay would be better. Boy, oh boy, was I wrong...dead wrong in fact.

The AdBrite ads did not display ads related to the subject matter of the blog, in fact some of them were offensive to me. Because of that I switched over to manual approve the ads that appeared. That did not stop the slew of get rich quick ads, ads for phentermine, and ads in a foreign language but now I had more control over them.

I had clicks but the clicks on the ads were only 1 or 2 cents. With Google I was use to 5 cents and up per click. Did I get paid for views? Yes I did but at a rate of about 3 cents per 1000 views which is actually slightly less than Google pays. For the entire 3 months I earned about $1.80...dismal, just plain dismal.

I just dropped AdBrite off of that blog today and put back the Google ads and have already earned .56 cents for one click. I am kicking myself for wasting 3 months of good revenue.